This blog began several years ago as a narrative of our efforts to lead a sustainable and self-sufficient lifestyle in the middle of our city. It still is, although our city has changed from Raleigh to Boise and we now are working diligently on restoring the family homestead in Montana.
The blog is also a chronicle of our lives together as a married couple, marriage being a sort of homesteading in itself.

Tuesday, July 18, 2006

We recently had a camera emergency. To my dismay, the viewfinder for the digital camera went blank so we could not see what we were photographing until the camera was plugged into the computer. What a major hassle. This was an improvement, however, from the time when the camera also stopped taking pictures. This resolved intself without intervention. I mentioned the viewfinder issue to Jon, and here is how the conversation went:

Me: "We need to buy a new camera."Jon: "How come?"Me: "It's not working."Jon (with an implied "DUH"): "Did you do the drop test on it?"Me: "The what?"Jon: "The drop test. When something stops working, you drop it, and it starts working again."Me (dubious): "Huh. No, I didn't."

Later that evening...Jon: "The camera is working again."Me: "It is?!?! How did you fix it?"Jon: "Duh, I dropped it."Me: "No way."Jon: "Way."

I should mention that both Jon and I are engineers with Fortune 100 technology companies which makes this methodology seem rather simpleton to me. Or is it? If we apply the principles of Occam's Razor, it is really the obvious solution.

Go Big

It was really hot here this past weekend. Temperatures in the 90s, felt like they were in the 100s with the added humidity, so we spent most of the days indoors. We stayed largely in our gender-defined spheres of influence, me in the kitchen and Jon working on the bathroom renovation.

I put up 5 pints and 5 half pints of salsa.

This is how many tomatoes we had left after canning the salsa (we hadn't gotten around to picking that day).

I also made a few loaves of zuchini walnut bread and cheddar dill beer bread (one large loaf was still in the oven).

I'll post the recipes here soon. For now, I am off to slice a hunk of bread and slather it with lightly salted organic cream butter. Yum.

3 comments:

Hey Melissa,Thanks for stopping in to the blog. Thanks for having us for the housewarming party. Your place is great!Please stop by the house anytime for homegrown tomatoes. As you can see, we have plenty!Kate

The camera thing sounds so much like Jon! That is the kind of stuff I put up with growing up! His logic, who would think that would work? lol! I thought the story was great, thanks for sharing. WOW, I only wish our garden gave us such beautiful veggies. We are jsut starting to harvest cucumbers and zuchini. Talk to ya soon! Les:)